(1). Field of the Invention
This invention relates, in general, to a method of and apparatus for the ultrasonic cleaning in situ of a plurality of objects located in a linear row in predetermined spaced-apart locations. More particularly, the invention is directed to the ultrasonic cleaning of chandeliers comprising a plurality of rows of downwardly extending elongated crystal pendants.
(2). Description of the Prior Art
The term ultrasonics(or supersonics) refers to sound vibrations, i.e., variations of density in elastic media such as air and water, whose frequencies are beyond the auditory limit. The frequencies of ultrasonic vibration are above approximately 20,000 cycles/sec. Nevertheless, higher ultrasonic frequencies may be in the order of 10 million cycles/sec. Such high-frequency vibrations are produced in various ways, based upon different principles.
Ultrasonic vibrations are used in many technical applications. One such use involves the cleaning of a wide variety of objects, e.g., jewelry, castings, automobile radiators, biofouled heat exchangers, etc. The ultrasonic cleaning of objects depends upon cavitation, i.e., the rapid formation and violent collapse of minute bubbles or cavities in a cleaning solution or liquid. This action creates a highly effective and unique penetrating action that, in a sense, blasts dirt, grit, and other contaminants from the surface of an object that has been covered with such materials. Ultrasonic cleaning can get into crevices in an object where dirt, etc. lies that other cleaning methods can not readily accomplish, if at all. It can remove contaminants that defy soaking, scrubbing, spraying and other conventional cleaning methods.
Over the last several years, it has become somewhat customary to provide chandeliers in restaurants, motels, bars and other public places which comprise a plurality of downwardly extending, spaced-apart, elongated crystals or pendants. The pendants are, in general, provided in a rectangular-shaped pattern of a plurality of rows of pendants, the rows being provided parallel to one another.
A chandelier may comprise, in at least some cases, a number of tiers of pendants, e.g., an inner or centrally located tier, a middle tier that surrounds the inner tier, and an outer tier of parallel rows and columns of pendants in surrounding association with both the inner and middle tier. The middle and inner tiers also comprise a plurality of parallel rows and columns of pendants. The bottom ends of the pendants in the multiple rows and columns of pendants terminate in different horizontal planes parallel to one another. The pendants are of different lengths, e.g., the outer row of pendants in the outer tier are the longest, while those located in the inner rows of the outer tier are of a shorter length. The top ends of the pendants located in the inner rows are located such that the top ends of such pendants lie in a horizontal plane located above that in which the bottom ends of the pendants in the outer row terminate. Thus, the top ends of those pendants located in the inner rows are hidden from view, allowing the shorter length pendants to be used in the construction of the chandelier, rather than pendants all of the same length. In a similar manner, the tops of the pendants making up those tiers located more inwardly can lie in a horizontal plane above that in which the bottom of the pendants in the next adjacent outer tier lie.
The elongated pendants making up such a chandelier as above-described are, in general, suspended vertically downwardly from the ceiling of a room or other area in which the chandelier is located. The ceiling or other horizontal surface from which the pendants are suspended by their top ends is generally provided with a horizontally disposed planar mirror, i.e., a reflective surface, which may be of glass or metal. Located somewhat below the reflective surface are a plurality of spaced-apart light fixtures in which are located light bulbs of suitable size.
The pendants are of conventional lead containing glass. Thus, the pendants, particularly when provided with multiple surfaces along the length thereof, are reflective to light. The pendants, in general, are of triangular cross-section with inwardly curved surfaces; however, the pendants are sometimes of other configuration, even of cut glass. Thus, the pendants reflect light from the light bulbs and that reflected from the mirror, providing an attractive chandelier, and enhancement of the appearance of the surroundings.
The pendants making up such a chandelier not only vary in length as earlier disclosed but also may vary in length from one chandelier to another, depending upon the particular needs for such a chandelier. Thus, the pendants in the outer row of the outer tier of pendants may be as much as from about 18 inches to about 3 feet in length, with those located in the inner rows varying from about 4-5 inches to about 8-10 inches or so. The pendants may be provided in as many as 8 to 10 rows of pendants in a tier. The length of such a chandelier may vary from a few feet, e.g., 8 or 10 feet up to as much as 30 feet, depending somewhat on where such a chandelier is located. The width of a 30' chandelier may be as much as 15 feet, e.g. a chandelier having a length of 30 feet may be as wide as 15 feet. A chandelier of this size may comprise several thousands, e.g. ten thousand elongated pendants, each being individually suspended by their top ends from the ceiling of a room. Chandeliers about 8 feet long and about 4 feet wise are more common. Nevertheless, such a chandelier may be made up of several thousands of pendants.
The pendants in the outer row of pendants in a chandelier, e.g., the outer row of the outer tier are, in general, attached to the ceiling by conventional "S" hooks, so that the top of each pendant in the outer row is located about 1/2 inch or so down from the ceiling. The pendants located in the inner rows of pendants are suspended from the ceiling, in general, by a conventional flexible chain comprising metal beads, the chain being attached at its top end to the ceiling and at the bottom end to the top end of a pendant. Thus, a conventional eye fastener is provided in the top end of a pendant, the "S" hook being connected to that eye fastener and to another eye fastener provided in the ceiling.
In some cases, the top ends of the pendants are not connected to the ceiling. Instead, a horizontally disposed planar member will be provided which is connected to the ceiling so as to be parallel thereto. The tops of the pendants are connected to that horizontally disposed member. At other times, a stepped platform or one arranged in tiers will be provided, that platform being directly attached to the ceiling of a room and providing a plurality of horizontally disposed planar members to which the tops of the pendants are attached. Thus, when "ceiling" is used herein, it will be appreciated that the top of the pendants are attached to a horizontally disposed surface and extend vertically downwardly therefrom but that such a member is not necessarily the ceiling.
As can be readily expected, the surfaces of the glass pendants over time become covered with dust and other contaminants from the environment. Thus, the reflectiveness of the chandelier pendants is continually reduced. And, the attractiveness of the chandelier is greatly diminished. It becomes necessary eventually that the pendants be cleaned, to restore the sparkling appearance to the pendants and to regain the initial sparkle and reflectiveness thereof, and to restore the overall attractiveness of the chandelier.
The cleaning of such chandeliers heretofore has involved a variety of methods. One such method known of for cleaning the pendants has involved the spraying of the pendants in place with an acid containing water solution. Although this manner of cleaning has been found satisfactory to a certain degree, it has also been found a ruinous practice over time not only to the glass pendants but also to the mirror and light fixtures, as well as any metal elements. Thus, from time-to-time, or eventually, these elements making up the chandelier need to be replaced.
Another method for the cleaning of such chandeliers has required a number of laborious and time-consuming operations. First, the pendants must each be taken down from the ceiling so that they can be cleaned. The numerous pendants e.g., in some cases 6-10 thousand, are all then immersed in a cleaning solution provided in an appropriate tank or container therefor and allowed to remain therein for a suitable time to remove the contaminants. Afterwards, the pendants maybe subjected to a rinse bath. Following cleaning and rinsing, the pendants are allowed to dry off some and then are individually reattached to the ceiling in the appropriate locations to reconstruct the chandelier, i.e., rehanging each of the pendants on a conventional "S" hook or the like so as to extend vertically downwardly from the ceiling.
The taking down and rehanging of the pendants has presented certain problems. One problem involves the "S" hook fastening members. When a chandelier is first constructed, those constructing the chandeliers see to it that the ends of the "S" fastener are closed. This better ensures that the pendants will not be accidently disconnected from the ceiling. Such a happening could result in serious injury to a person that might be hit by a falling pendant, sometimes 30" or so in length.
As a result of the "S" fastener being closed at its ends, it is necessary for one taking a pendant down to be cleaned to bend an end of the "S" fastener to open it, in order that the pendant can be taken down. With the closeness of the spacing of the pendants from one another this can be achieved only with some difficulty. More importantly, however, when the pendants are again rehung, the "S" fastener end is ordinarily not closed but, instead is left open. The closing of the "S" is time consuming and difficult to accomplish. The result of this practice is believed to present a potentially hazardous condition. This is particularly the case, it is believed, where a chandelier may be installed adjacent an outer door, e.g. a motel lobby, and be subject to occasional gusts of air or wind. The same is true where the pendants may be subject to some vibration, though slight, for example, where a chandelier might be located adjacent a bank of elevators. The extent of the potential for the dislodgement of a pendant from its "S" fastener depends largely upon how much the end of the "S" was opened to be able to take down a particular pendant. This, as will be readily appreciated, depends upon who took the pendant down. One person may be inclined to open the "S" fastener more than another.
Heretofore, the chandelier pendants have also been cleaned by ultrasonic means. This procedure has involved, in general, the taking down of the pendants individually as earlier disclosed and immersing them in a cleaning solution contained in a tank or container provided for the purpose and in which an ultrasonic means has been provided. The cleaned pendants are then rinsed, allowed to dry, and then rehung from the ceiling as earlier described.
The cleaning of the chandelier pendants in this manner last disclosed i.e., by ultrasonic means, has been accomplished without any particular concern as to the shape and size of the tank or vessel containing the cleaning liquid. In general, any tank available to the cleaning business has been used. A tank to be selected was generally of a desirably large size so as to be able to hold at one time a relatively large number of the pendants taken down from a particular chandelier. Thus, a tank used heretofore for such a cleaning operation was 80 inches long and contained 70 gallons or so of cleaning liquid. Transducers for such a cleaning tank were basically selected by a rule-of-thumb provided by the manufacturer, e.g., a transducer element for each gallon of water. As a result a 70 gallon tank would be provided with at least four immersible transducers each comprising 12 transducer elements. The pendants, on being taken down from the chandelier, are placed in an open basket, one on top of the other the basket then being placed in the cleaning tank. Or, in some cases, the pendants may be merely placed directly in the cleaning tank. No matter which procedure is involved, however, the pendants are closely bunched together and in contact with one another, one on top of the other. After cleaning the pendants are removed from the tank or basket one at a time to be rehung for the reconstruction of the chandelier.
Although this last disclosed method of cleaning, i.e., by ultrasonics, is far more satisfactory than cleaning by the spray method disclosed earlier, the use of such apparatus and method of cleaning is still attendant with certain faults. While the pendants after this cleaning procedure are seen to be much cleaner and more light reflective than prior to the ultrasonic cleaning thereof, at least some of the the pendants a on closer inspection a appear not to have been uniformly cleaned. Although I do not wish to be held to this theory, this apparently results from the manner in which the pendants are placed in the basket or cleaning tank. The pendants are laid flat, one upon the top of another. Thus, it would appear that as the ultrasonic waves are propagated toward the elongated pendants to be cleaned that the surfaces thereof may not be uniformly contacted. As a result, shadowing occurs wherein some of the surfaces of the pendants are precluded from receiving the ultrasonic waves, or at least to the same extent. The pendants, as will be appreciated, each contact a part of the surface of a next adjacent pendant. Other parts of the surface of a pendant is available to be contacted by the cleaning liquid. Moreover, those surfaces of a pendant facing downwardly toward the bottom of the cleaning tank are more directly opposed to the transducers than are the top surfaces of the pendants, allowing for possible nonuniform cleaning.
Of somewhat lesser concern than nonuniform cleaning of a pendant is the problem of handling the pendants. The pendants need be detached from the "S" hooks, placed in the basket or tank, and then rehung. Though care is taken in the handling there is, necessarily, some breakage. When such occurs, the broken pendant or pendants need be replaced. Thus, for a time, the chandelier may be clean but it is less attractive because of the missing pendants.
Nevertheless, whether the cleaning of the chandeliers heretofore has been accomplished by ultrasonic or other means, it will be readily appreciated that any such a procedure has been a somewhat time consuming task and quite labor intensive. And because of this, the cleaning of the chandeliers as disclosed heretofore has been somewhat expensive. To clean a chandelier of a size as earlier disclosed, e.g., one 4'.times.8' prior to my invention, has taken 11/2 days with two people. The larger part of that time, however, is spent in the labor of taking down the individual pendants and then rehanging them again, after such have been cleaned. Once taken down, the ultrasonic cleaning of the pendants takes only a few minutes, depending largely on how soiled the pendants are. This depends to some extent upon just where the chandelier is located. For example, the pendants of such a chandelier located in a lobby adjacent a door to the outside or opposite an air vent may become substantially more dirty and less reflective, and in a shorter period of time, than the same configuration of chandelier located in a ballroom. Thus, the cleaning heretofore of chandeliers comprising downwardly extending pendants has involved considerable expense and effort due, primarily, to its labor intensiveness, as earlier more fully described. This effort and expense is determined to a large extent upon the size and configuration of the chandelier, i.e., the number of columns and rows of pendants, the length of the columns and rows, and the spacing of the pendants from one another.
Due to the above, institutions whereat such chandeliers are installed often have the chandeliers cleaned less often than is really needed or actually desirable. This is particularly the case where a number of the chandeliers are installed at a particular institution. Moreover, in some cases, chandeliers comprising downwardly extending pendants have not been cleaned, since their installation. With some such chandeliers the pendants are so closely spaced together, e.g., only about 1 inch apart, that it is not possible to take the pendants down for cleaning. The only cleaning method possible for such a chandelier is by spray cleaning which is .not only undesirable, for the reasons earlier disclosed, but also not effective for good cleaning. Moreover, wiping the pendants clean in place can not be really accomplished due to the close spacing of the pendants in these chandeliers. The size of the pendants, generally about 8 inches long, and the fact that such a chandelier may comprise several hundreds, even thousands in some cases, of pendants makes the cleaning of the chandelier impractical, if not impossible.
Thus, there is a real need for a better method of cleaning the chandeliers such as disclosed herein and apparatus for accomplishing such in a manner that is less labor intensive, resulting in not only considerably less time and effort for the cleaning but also attendant costs.